


pro bono

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Blow Jobs, Cock Warming, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drunk Sex, Emotional Sex, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Time, Friends With Benefits, Glory Hole, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Purring Keith (Voltron), Semi-Public Sex, Situational Humiliation, Sort Of, The porn is the plot??, This was meant to be PWP but it kept trying to grow plot, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2020-09-17 22:00:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20299051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Somehow, Lance doesn't think "realizing his teammate blew him once in a dive bar" is what Shiro meant by "finding common ground" with Keith.





	1. Chapter 1

In retrospect, it’s maybe not as impressive of a brag as Lance meant for it to be.

“What? No,” says Hunk, face screwed up in disgust. “I mean, Double Down’s had pretty bad food and…pretty bad everything, but...”

“It’s not _that _surprising,” Pidge says. “If anywhere had a glory hole, it would be that trash heap.”

“I swear it's true!” Lance cackles. “I’ve seen it, Hunk! There is truly and factually a hole in the wall between the last two stalls, like this big.” He makes a C with one hand, indicating a ring the size of a tennis ball. “Come on. Keith, you know what I'm talking about, right?”

Keith doesn’t even look up. He’s sitting on a couch facing away from them. By himself. Hunk invited him to join their card game, but he’s got to be the lone wolf as always, lurking on the other side of the room and reading…whatever kind of alien novel he’s managed to rustle up on the Castleship. “No.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “Of course not, you hate fun. What was I thinking.”

“Double Down's wasn't fun,” Pidge points out flatly. “It was a disgusting podunk dive with a broken karaoke machine. And a glory hole, apparently.”

“You shouldn’t have even been in there, Pidge, weren't you only 18 or something? Didn’t they have a 21+ rule?”

“Yeah, so, the hard part of making my fake ID was fabricating a nonexistent person with a social security number, back-dated webfeed history, and highschool transcripts, not making myself three years older.”

“Just because there's a hole doesn't mean anyone actually uses it _like that_,” Hunk insists in a shrill whisper, like he’s afraid someone will overhear them. “Someone probably knocked a hole in the stall and they hadn't patched it up yet.”

“Oh, I _guarantee_ you it got used.” Lance smirks.

There’s a horrified silence as that lands.

“What? Sometimes you gotta be brave and stick your dick in a hole and you get rewarded!”

Pidge yells wordlessly and Hunk is burying his face in his hands, shaking his head and saying “no” repeatedly. Keith looks sharply over the couch.

“Gross, Lance. Gross,” Pidge groans.

“Buddy, you are my best friend and I love you, but there are some things I just don’t want to know,” Hunk says, looking queasy.

“Ok, ok, sorry!” Lance holds his hands up, laughing. Keith abruptly stands up, gives him what he can only call a judgmental once-over from shoes to crown and back, then stalks off with his book.

“And now you've gone and scared off Keith with your grossness,” Pidge says. “Dammit, Lance, him even being in here was progress.”

Lance rolls his eyes. It’s not like he’s any fun anyway. He's probably just jealous that Lance has seen some action.

* * *

“Hey, Hunk? Back at the Garrison…”

Lance screeches to a halt in the hallway outside the kitchen, where he can hear where this is going unseen. Why is Keith asking Hunk about the Garrison?

“Did Lance have this little…keychain thing that he wore on one shoe? A little planet Jupiter?”

“Ohhh yeah, he did, now that you mention it,” Hunk says, then his tone turns teasing. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing,” Keith says dismissively. Lance scoffs silently, outrage rising like a bird’s fluffing feathers. “I kind of remember running into him once and didn't make the connection. Thanks Hunk.”

“Yeah, no problem buddy.”

The instant Keith exits the kitchen and sees Lance, mouth open and pointing accusingly at him, his eyes pop wide in unmistakable alarm. Then he sets his shoulders, scowling, and strides past him. Lance refuses to move but just ends up staggering when Keith shoulderchecks him, bulldozing right through like he’s a cardboard cutout.

“Ohhhh no, no no no you don't!” Lance stalks after him. “I heard that! You didn't notice I was in your class but somehow noticed my _shoelace charm_?!”

“I just remembered it. It’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, oh yeah, sure. You don’t remember my name, can’t even remember I was a pilot, but you ‘suddenly remember’ –"

Keith stops, flinging his arms wide. “God, you’re such a drama queen! I really didn't remember you at the crash, ok. I just remembered seeing those shoes!”

Lance nods with exaggerated sarcasm. “Oh sure, right. How could I be so silly. You don’t remember me at all –“

“And I remembered you were a pilot when you reminded me—”

“- but you _do _remember a charm I wore like, once or twice, out of uniform! Uh-huh, ok, sure! You just go around staring at people's feet? How did you even remember they were…mine…."

The thing that he’s realized, being on a team with the red paladin, is that Keith’s idea of a good defense is a good offense, and Keith couldn’t be more defensive without literally shield-checking him in this moment: leaned in with his jaw jutted like a battering ram, arms lashed in a knot, his ears and cheeks glowing scarlet. Two and two crash together into an earth-shattering four.

“Oh my god,” Lance says blankly. “I only got to wear it a couple times before it broke. Once just in the dorms, and…at Double Down's…"

“Nope.” Keith turns on his heel and starts striding down the hall in the opposite direction from where he’d originally been headed.

Lance, unwisely, chases after him. “Was that – were you –?”

“Fuck off, Lance!”

“—In the bathroom?!”

The other paladin halts so abruptly Lance flails to avoid running into him, then flails a little more avoidingly backward when Keith wheels on him, whipping out the knife from the back of his belt. His face is carved into a rictus of feral rage, teeth bared and lips curled in a not-so-silent snarl.

“Drop. It. McClain.”

His voice is like an iron gate being dragged across gravel, eyes livid and wet. The dark blade trembles in his hand, inches from Lance’s chin. For long seconds that stretch precariously, a brittle rubber band, Lance is convinced the red paladin will snap and actually stab him. Instead Keith breaks the moment with a sharp upward jerk of his chin, flips the knife over and shoves it roughly back in its sheath.

Lance stares, still frozen, as he stalks away.

* * *

The reality of the thing was maybe not _quite_ as cool as Lance makes it sound.

It’s Saturday night and he’s out with a group of friends. Well, classmates. Hunk didn’t want to come, busy with homework. Pidge still doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with them outside of drills. And Janelle, the cute girl in his history of aviation class, who Lance had – very suavely, if you ask him – invited to join him, had turned him down with prejudice. In front of half the class. So much for his good-luck Jupiter charm. And now that they’re here at Double Down’s, the cheapest bar in the nearby small town. It’s dingy and smoky and the music’s not great and the drinks are worse and everyone else has kind of cliqued off to laugh and chat or paired off to exchange little smiles and lingering looks over their drinks and…. Yeah. Lance isn’t really sure why he insisted on coming anyway, except that he didn’t want anyone to think that Janelle’s public rejection mattered to him. It did, and being here is…not really helping as much as he hoped it would.

His third drink is hitting him a little harder than he was prepared for, pulling up weepy feelings of homesickness that he really doesn’t need right now, the clump of classmates that he’s hanging out with (though Marriet and Yuna are turned slightly away from him, so, maybe he’s just kind of…hanging out) are talking about this morning’s simulator run, which he really doesn’t want to relive right at the moment, and he kind of wants to go back to the dorm and hang out with Hunk even if he is busy, but he didn't drive and can’t afford a taxi on his own.

“Gotta pee, be right back,” Lance says, clicking his empty glass on the bar, and Jason glances at him but nobody else even pauses in their conversation and – yeah.

He makes his embarrassing escape.

The men’s bathroom is just as dim as the bar and houses three cramped stalls where there’s really only room for one. Chipped near-black purple paint is visible in patches under layers of graffiti. He has to wrestle with the stall door a little to line up the crooked deadbolt and snick it into place.

Lance drops heavily onto the toilet and squeezes his spinning head between his palms, elbows digging into his knees. The dark tile floor is cracked and disgusting. In his tipsy haze it feels meaningful, like some kind of horribly perfect metaphor for his social life. He never had problems making friends before the Garrison. He was a regular Casanova, except fun and laidback. Ok maybe not a dating Casanova, but definitely a friend Casanova. But everyone here is just so competitive and cutthroat, and everyone in his class knows he’s the cargo pilot who only squeaked in because the infamous Keith Kogane got the boot, and…

It’s just taking him a while to get his momentum.

It’s while gazing deeply into an especially questionable stain Lance notices: there’s a pair of knees visible under the divider, in the stall next door. They’re pointed at him, not the toilet.

Oh man, is this poor guy too puking-drunk to hurl _into_ the toilet? Lance dances his feet to the opposite side of the stall just in case. The last thing he needs is to ruin his favorite shoes and his new shoelace charm to top off the night.

“You ok there, bud? You want me to get you water or call a cab or something?” he asks, then automatically looks up at movement in his peripheral. 

There's a hole in the stall divider at right about crotch height. A couple of fingers have poked through, hooking on the bottom edge. Lance can’t see anything else of the other guy at this angle, but he can hear him breathing, slow and deep.

Lance’s jaw drops. Apparently the rumors are true. Holy shit.

“Are you, uh, waiting for…someone?” he gulps, then immediately feels stupid. Before he can backtrack – he should just leave, right? – one of those nail-bitten fingers points at him. His gut swoops. “Me? Are you sure? I wasn’t really planning on, uh…”

The fingers just hook in again, waiting, and the guy – he’s still pretty sure it’s a guy, the fingers are blunt and squarish – shuffles on his knees a little. One knee of his black jeans is torn. Lance doesn't think it's for fashion, either; a mostly-healed scab matches the angle of the tear. 

“Ok,” Lance breathes, “ooooook. Um. Wow. Lucky lotto number me, huh? Pretty sure this is how people get their dicks cut off at truck stops –"

The guy huffs a voiceless, incredulous laugh.

“No offense,” Lance says hurriedly. Was that offensive? Is there some kind of glory hole etiquette? None of his sexual experience has prepared him for this scenario, on account of not technically existing. “I don’t mean that you would – I mean I guess I have no way of knowing – um. You come here often?”

As soon as the line leaves his mouth he facepalms, smearing his hand down his warming face. You would think the drinks at such a cheap dive would be more watered down, he thinks wildly. There’s rustling as the guy shifts on his knees, and one of the fingers taps a little.

“Sorry, it’s been a rough day,” Lance admits to those impatient fingers. “I guess this is just where my life is at. I mean I’m batting zero for a million here and then you’re handing me the ball. Yolo, amiright?”

Nodding decisively as though that makes any kind of sense, he stands up, then slumps heavily against the wall as his head swims at the sudden movement. “Really hope I’m not misreading this.” Lance fiddles with the button of his jeans. “Hell, I’m going to get the clap and deserve it. I don’t have a condom, do you? Just trustin’ that you’re clean, man, I swear I’m pure as the driven snow over here.”

The fingers retreat. Lance hesitates. Is this really how this is going to go down? But then, it’s not like anyone else is offering. Why disappoint the guy, right?

He unzips, takes his dick out, gives it a few dry squeezes to get things going, and threads it through the hole, cupping his other hand over his balls so they won’t actually touch the wall.

A warm, dry hand catches him on the other side, cradling his swelling cock. Lance yelps, jerking back slightly. Oh heck, this is actually happening. It really is totally different, being touched by someone else. “Sorry,” he squeaks, easing forward again. He’s answered by the almost comforting slide of fingers stroking him gently and an appreciative hum. That little sound is like a first daub of cooling lotion on his chafed ego, and he leans into it. “Ok. Ok…”

Sensation explodes over him as a hot, wet tongue presses flat against the tip. Lance gasps, throwing a hand up to grip the top of the divider and hold himself up, making the entire wall rattle. His new friend wraps warm lips around his head, enclosing it in liquid heat, wriggles the point of his tongue into his slit. Is this how he dies? Blowjob brain explosion?

“Oh god,” he whimpers. “Oh man. Oh heck.”

Cool air hits him as the guy pulls back, but that tongue is immediately back, licking sloppy stripes up his length. The guy kisses the head, open-mouthed and generous, like Lance has always fantasized about kissing a plush pair of lips, then takes him in fully. Lance presses his fist and forehead against the divider, mouth open in a silent shout as he sinks into overwhelmingly soft heat.

Everything zeroes in on that blaze of pleasure, like every cell of him wired is directly to his cock. It’s all Lance can do to cling to the wall and let this guy do all the work, 100% of his hazy control going toward not thrusting and accidentally choking his surprise blowjob buddy.

That leaves none of it to prevent the contents of his brain spilling out his mouth in a whispered rush.

“Ohhh _fuck_, oh fuck. Your mouth is amazing, you feel so good – oh fuck, you’re so good at tha_ah_! Haahh, ah, oh please, you – _oh_, you’re so good, you feel so perfect, you’re sooo—” As he rambles his cock starts to feel like it’s _buzzing_, like the guy’s throat is somehow vibrating around him. Lance squeezes his eyes shut, knuckles blanching, every line and corner strung taut. “Ohhh, whatever you’re doing, please don’t stop – is that, are you _humming_? Oh god, I’m not gonna last, your mouth is a miracle, dude, hahhh…”

Lance can’t actually hear the guy humming over the indistinct pounding of the bar’s music and the jumble of voices outside, but the wet slurping soundtrack of the undeniably enthusiastic blowjob are just barely audible. A jolt runs through Lance when it occurs to him for the first time that this is a public bathroom, and anyone could come in at any second.

As though he’s jinxed them with the thought, the noise of the bar suddenly triples in volume as the door swings open.

Lance freezes, easing his hand down from the divider out of sight and clamping it tightly over his mouth. Adrenaline douses him in icewater and terror. Uneven footsteps stump over to the urinals. He’s completely expecting Blowjob Buddy to pull back but he instead he stills, Lance’s dick still stuffed in his mouth, steadying what doesn’t fit in the crook of his thumb and forefinger. Those lips stay wrapped snug around him, warm tongue cradling the shaft, the yielding smoothness of his soft palate caressing the head, puffs of steady breath stirring the curls at his base. The warring sensations of cold panic and the sultry heat hugging his cock might actually fry his dizzy brain. Lance holds his breath until he can’t anymore, chest burning and pulse pounding in his throat as he takes the shallowest breaths he can manage. Every one sounds like a bellows in his own ears. His cock refuses to flag despite this crisis, throbbing harder in the slick, pliant embrace that holds it.

It seems like the stranger pisses for an eternity. At last water runs, the door opens and closes with another rush of bar racket. Blowjob Buddy immediately dives back into it with a gulping swallow and long drag of his lips that makes Lance strangle a desperate keen into his palm.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe that just happened,” he hisses, and can't stop his hips from rolling once, pushing a startled grunt out of the other guy.

Holding still is one of the hardest things Lance has ever done. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” he squeaks out.

But there’s a throaty moan, the guy swallowing more of Lance’s length into wet heat and squeezing the base tight with his hand. Lance’s knees nearly give out.

“You – do you want me to…?”

“Mm-hmm,” Blowjob Buddy groans around his cock.

“Oh man,” Lance whines, his hips stuttering forward. Reaching up to hang onto the divider again to steady himself, he tries to find a shallow, easy rhythm. He feels the hand adjust around his base, giving him a firm, tight channel to thrust into without gagging the guy, and it’s like a tumbler clicking in a lock. Lance falls into the bass line thumping through the bar on instinct. That warm hand squeezes him perfectly, tongue working against his cockhead on every beat he fucks into that eager mouth, the electric tension in his gut spiraling tighter and tighter, spiking every time those slurping sounds land on his ears or that tongue flickers against him just so –

“Oh. Oh god. I’m gonna come,” Lance gasps, turning his face into his sleeve. “You might wanna – I’m, I’m—_ohh_—"

Instead of pulling off the guy presses closer, sucking hard. Lance’s mouth drops in a silent scream, pressing his face hard against his arm as his whole body draws up rigid against the wall, while this amazing stranger draws his soul out through his dick.

He _whines, _trembling, when he realizes Blowjob Buddy must have swallowed, mouthing lightly at him as he comes down from orgasm and then licking him clean. The guy finishes off with a small flourish, dropping a hilariously chaste kiss right on the head as if he’s bidding it good night. What the fuck.

Lance blinks rapidly, leaned against the wall. He’s shaking. Summoning what coordination he can, he pulls himself back through, clumsily pats out for the opposite wall for balance and flumps down on the toilet seat, softening dick still hanging out of his fly. _Becky is a ho, _the graffiti on the stall door informs him. _This town blows, _and_ Call XXX-XXXX for oz._

Welp. So that’s his first ever sex, then.

“Um…thanks. For that. Is uh, this a…quid pro quo kinda thing?” Lance asks, struggling to tuck himself back in. His zipper seems to be actively fighting his clumsy hands. “I’ve never…I could maybe give you a handie?”

The other guy just huffs a laugh, withdrawing and standing up. Lance can hear him sit down on the toilet and give a long, humming sigh.

“Oh. Um, right. Sure, cool cool, ok. Then thanks again,” Lance says, drumming his fingers on one knee awkwardly. What’s he supposed to do now? “Is it weird to thank people for anonymous blowies? Sorry, I’m not really sure what the normal, um – what the code is here. I just – I mean, that was really good, you’re uh, really good at that, so thanks, and um,” why is he still talking, oh god, “Sorry, I’ve kind of had a shit day and I don’t – I’d be happy to buy you a beer or some – it doesn’t have to be a beer, you can have a drink on me if you wanna just – tap me on the shoulder at the bar, no pressure though, uh…?”

The only response is the other man’s quiet breathing. No huffing laughter, no shift of the feet.

“Right,” Lance says. Now would be an awesome time to literally sink through the floor, like he already feels like he’s doing. “You probably want to keep your secret superhero identity. I’ll just…go.” He stands, unsteady, fumbles the lock open, washes his hands. Lance hesitates once more at the door, says, “Um, thanks again. You have a good rest of your night,” and returns to the din outside.

Needless to say, no strangers with warm hands and fucked-swollen lips approach him at the bar. He rejoins his classmates (nobody comments on how long he was gone). He doesn’t look any of the many times throughout the night that he hears the bathroom door squeak open and closed, and never tells anyone about the encounter until he's bragging about it to the other paladins almost a year later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a minute, and I have to admit I struggled with this chapter and am not very happy with it. But I am determined to finish this fic and hopefully it won't be quite as long a wait to the last chapter. Which will be the smutty one. No smut here, just talking.

Keith is unbearable afterward, moody and on edge and snapping at the smallest things. Or so Lance hears. He’s barely seen the guy since…um. Since he, uh, found out…stuff. He’s obviously avoiding Lance, and Lance kind of can’t blame him? Thank quiznack they haven’t needed Voltron yet. Lance is pretty sure if they tried to merge right now, they might break something. Such as their minds, or the entire superbot that the universe is counting on. Or both.

On the third morning Keith storms out in the middle of breakfast, after Lance said something _completely_ _innocent _(he can’t actually remember what he was talking about, it was just nervous word vomit—Keith’s silent tantrum at least distracted everyone from Lance’s brain dissolving out his mouth). Lance and Pidge find him on the training deck two hours later continuing to defeat an already extremely defeated gladiator. It’s not even moving anymore, unless you count the occasional burst of sparks as he hacks at it, less like the Right Hand of Voltron and more like a drunk lumberjack taking a hatchet to a tree he’s got a grudge against.

They make the tactical decision to monitor the situation from the safety of the observation booth.

“What did you do, Lance,” Pidge asks flatly.

Lance finds himself the accidental inventor of a way to trip over one’s own feet while standing in place. “Why are you blaming me?!”

“He’s obviously upset about _something_.” There’s a skittering crash as Keith kicks an amputated metal arm into the wall below with a shout. “And he lights out like his tail’s on fire whenever you come into the room. It’s basic logic.”

“I didn't do anything!”

“Well, _Allura’s_ going to do something if he doesn’t stop wrecking her stuff.”

Lance isn’t _sulking_ like _Keith_, but it’s not like he’s having a fun time here either! Now that it’s had some time to sink in a little, his brain feels like it’s going to combust if he stands still long enough to let it hit the bottom. He laughs too loud at Hunk’s jokes. Throws himself at Allura with shrill desperation. Babbles more and faster into the silence of Keith’s retreats with a manic edge that shreds his own nerves to confetti. And in the quiet after lights out his thoughts are tangled and awful, a whole pitful of snakes trying to swallow each other.

First there’s the whole thing where Keith Kogane, top pilot of their generation, a prodigy who can’t be bothered with anyone lower than the heroic Takashi Shirogane, has blown him – _him_, Lance McClain, a fighter pilot on a technicality and pretty damn gorgeous and amazing but…not exactly a prodigy – on his knees on the disgusting floor of a toilet, where he’d apparently been waiting for any horny stranger to come by and use him. Had this been this a habit? Or is Lance’s the only dick he’s sucked? It can’t have been, it was too…um. It just, y’know, really seemed like he knew what he was doing. Quiznack. How _many_, then? And why? He must be into it, right? Surely it couldn’t have been hard for Keith to get guys into bed the usual way, despite his attitude. With that face and that body and – ok, Lance really needs to not follow this line of thought, not if he ever wants to look his teammate in the eyes again, something which is already in question.

Point is, Lance has had this clear mental image for years of exactly what kind of guy Keith is. Arrogant. Aloof. A sharp, pristine line painted high on a wall that Lance just can’t reach no matter how much he jumps, and oh, how he’s tried. He can’t reconcile that kind of voluntary degradation with the sterling pedestal-topper in his mind, and he can’t reconcile Blowjob Buddy’s eager-to-please enthusiasm with the serious fighter he’s slowly – _very_ slowly – coming to know. It’s throwing everything he knows about Keith into question, which is throwing everything he thinks he knows at all into question.

And then he’s also humiliated, because he’s always talked a big game in front of Keith, but he has in fact only had one sexual experience (or…maybe more like one half? Did it count if he didn’t reciprocate?), and it was completely unromantic and tawdry and kind of depressing. And now his rival _knows _firsthand – not just that it happened, but that he was weepy and desperate – offering to buy this random guy a drink, like the exchange _meant_ something. God, what did he even say to him? He can barely remember what garbage fell out of his mouth, except that he probably came off as a total joke.

Even worse, now he keeps fantasizing about it, which nobody asked for, thanks - catches himself staring at Keith's mouth, then flinching when it curls into a snarl and his eyes flick up to find Keith glaring daggers at him.

It’s not like he’s _never_ considered Keith in that way. He has eyes, after all! But definitely not this often or this seriously or in this much detail, because he’s also got ears and Keith’s a jerk. Unfortunately, it turns out it’s a lot harder to brush aside idle thoughts about someone sucking your dick when you know firsthand how they like to go about it.

And then there’s the nightmare gravy dousing this nauseating blend of ingredients: terror that any of this will leak out while forming Voltron. The feelings conveyed through the gestalt are rarely as precise as a specific thought or memory, but it’s looming so large in his mind right now, and Keith must be thinking about it too.

He needs to get this out of his head and into open air, but the last thing he can do is bring anyone else in on this awful mess. It’s bad enough that Keith knows.

And he’s pretty sure if he tries to bring it up with the guy, he’ll offer to release the built-up pressure in Lance’s brain forcibly and literally with his sword.

-

It gets so bad that Shiro assigns them a fake “mission” for some forced bonding.

“It’s a serious and important mission,” Shiro says when he pulls Lance aside beforehand. “But maybe you two can get to know each other a little better on the trip there and back. You know, do some bonding. To fill the time. On the mission.”

Judging by the sour look on Keith’s face, he got the same debriefing.

The mission is easy. So easy that Shiro is confident they only need one lion. They fly out in Red. Complete the assigned tasks. One of them could have done it alone in their sleep, if it needed to be done at all, which Lance doubts.

By the time they’re on their way home in Red, Lance is realizing they’re absolutely going to fail the _real_ mission. The bullshit one was done in curt fragments of necessary communication, and without that need, silence takes over.

Lance has suffered through silences that suffocated like damp blankets, silences that crushed like the deep ocean. This one isn’t an absence of sound so much as an enormous thing with bones and heft and unbearable topography, cramming them up against the bulkheads and jabbing Lance with spiny joints every time he darts a sidelong glance at Keith and goes unacknowledged.

_Four more hours of this,_ Lance thinks hysterically, and that’s it. He can’t take it.

“Can we just get this over with?!”

Keith snaps like a sprung mousetrap. “There’s nothing to get over with!”

“Right, so, we’re just going to go back and tell Shiro we talked, and never mind Keith destroying the Castle one bulkhead at a time! Never mind how if we tried to form Voltron like this we’d probably explode our brains into smithereens – “

“Just forget it and things will go back to normal!”

“I can’t just _forget_ that we kind of had _sex_, Keith!”

Keith rears back in the pilot’s seat. For a long moment he stares with an expression like torn paper, then looks up and through the viewscreen in that glazed way that means he’s communicating with Red. Finally he sighs explosively, punching a panel on the console. “Fine. But I need to not be sober for this.”

The panel pops open and Keith grabs an alien bottle of clear coppery-red..._something_ from the compartment.

“What the quiznack. Is that booze? Where did you even get that?” Lance is momentarily distracted. “And more importantly, why haven’t you been sharing?”

Instead of answering Keith pours a shot into the lid of the bottle, tosses it back, pours out a second shot, and thrusts it at Lance.

Taking it, Lance sniffs at the liquid then sips it gingerly. He halfway expects it to taste like cinnamon candy. It does not taste like cinnamon candy. It’s like licking bad hot sauce off a sheet of aluminum foil while getting punched in the chest. Definitely not a sipping drink. Plugging his nose, he gulps down the rest. It stings all the way down, the bitter heat of alcohol followed by an unpleasantly metallic afterburn, making him cough.

“Oh my god, you're pathetic.”

“That’s disgusting,” Lance rasps, letting Keith snatch the cap from his fingers for another shot. “The hell is that? Alien ghost pepper with burned pencil shavings? And who are you to call _me_ pathetic –“

The look Keith shoots him over the cap is all violence, and Lance immediately throws his hands up placatingly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have – nobody’s pathetic, we’re all cool.”

The red paladin doesn’t reply, but he does offer Lance a second capful, which honestly could be either an acceptance or revenge. Or both. Lance throws this one back quickly, trying to ingest it without letting it touch any part of his mouth. It does not work. He hands back the emptied cap, hacking into the crook of his arm with tears in his eyes.

Keith snaps the cap back on, clanks the bottle down on the console then slumps down in the seat with his palms pressed to his eyesockets. Already Lance can feel the effect of the smoky liquor, tingly warmth creeping from his core to his skin and making him slightly light-headed.

“Ok,” Keith grits. “I’ll talk about this, _once_,” he stabs a finger between Lance’s eyes, “on _two _conditions. One – if you start making jokes all the time about sucking dick, or – “

“I won’t!” Lance squeaks, but Keith keeps on right over him

“- Or start giving me shit about it like this is some kind of point in your dumbfuck rivalry thing – I swear to god, McClain – “

“I won’t, I promise I won’t,” he gulps. He really doesn’t need Keith to finish that threat.

“And if you _swear_, on Voltron and on Blue, that you won't breathe a fucking _word_ to Shiro. Or anyone else, but especially Shiro.”

“Wha- Why would I tell Shiro?!” Lance sputters. “I don’t come off well in this either!”

His face twists. “You had no problem bragging to Hunk and Pidge.”

“Yeah but – that was before I knew – and it’s different with Shiro! Hunk and Pidge are used to my – me. Shiro’s like…my hero. I don’t want to, y’know, make him think I’m some kind of slut!”

Keith sighs, and all his tight, angry lines and angles sag into miserable slumps. “Yeah.” He seems to struggle with himself for a moment, then says, “I just – I don't want Shiro to be ashamed of me.”

Silence descends, considerably less bulky and jointed, but still awkward. “Well, you wanted to talk,” Keith says, strained. “So talk. What is there even to talk about.”

“I – what the hell, Keith. Where do I even start?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one who wanted to do this!”

“Uh, ok, then. Did you, did you know it was me?”

“No,” Keith bursts out. “God, no. Not ‘til you shot your mouth off in the lounge.”

That’s…maybe a relief? Lance honestly isn’t sure. “Was it like…” Lance makes a rolling gesture with one hand. He wishes he had something to fidget with. “A one time thing?”

“…No,” Keith says, like he’s punching the word out of a sheet of lead.

“How often…?”

“I don’t know, it’s not like I kept a fucking diary about it,” the other paladin snaps. “I wasn’t–“ He stops mid-sentence, rubbing his face with one hand. “I stopped when I sensed Blue the first time. Had better things to do.”

“I mean, uh. No kinkshame, man. If that's what you're into, you be you I guess?”

“Oh my god, cut it out with the after school special crap,” Keith groans. “I don’t get off on – on fucking strangers or some shit.”

“Ok first off, this would be a pretty off the rails after school special. And, uh,” Lance purses his lips and taps his fingers together. “Based on evidence, just saying you _might_?”

“Look, I didn't want strings. I didn’t need someone bugging me about – where I was living or whatever.”

_Where I was living._ The memory of that tiny tumbledown shack rams him and it occurs to Lance for the first time that it maybe wasn’t just some base of operations for weird magic desert conspiracy chasing, Keith was _living_ out there. Did he have nowhere else to go after leaving the Garrison? Nobody to go to? “So it was just…?”

“I don’t know, blowing off steam? Stress relief? I didn’t exactly have much going on,” his voice takes on a rusty edge. “I was drinking at Double Down’s one night and noticed the hole and things just…went from there.”

“Haven't you ever heard of hookup apps? You could have just gone to the next town over!”

“I didn't have a phone.”

“...Fair enough, I guess.” Lance laughs nervously. “I mean, I’m batting zero for twenty asking people out the usual way, so I guess I’m the last person who should be giving you advice on how to get your rocks off.”

Keith buries his face in both hands. “Oh my god, stop. It wasn’t like that.”

“What, nobody ever, y’know,” Lance makes a suggestive gesture that he immediately regrets, and pins his hands between his knees to keep them under control. “Paid back in kind?”

“Oh my _god_, Lance. No!”

“Wait, so...have _you_ ever gotten a blowjob?”

“Oh my fucking –“ Keith shakes his head into his hands, smearing them down the sides of his face. “Fuck right off with whatever competition this is in your head, McClain. I've sucked a few guys off, and beyond that it's really none of your business.”

Lance shrugs, eyes on his own hands, still sandwiched between his own knees. He squeezes them a little. He can feel the liquor starting to get to his head; it swims a little when he moves, skin too-warm and buzzy. “I mean, it’s kind of my business? Seeing as how I was one of them.”

There’s a beat. From the corner of his eye, Lance watches as Keith’s face flips through some interesting acrobatics: scrunching defensively, then dropping in uncertainty, melting further into something like shame. “That was your first time.”

It’s not a question.

“I mean obviously ladies and gentlemen alike are lining up to get with all this,” Lance blusters, but it doesn’t even get an eyeroll.

Keith isn’t meeting his eyes at all, in fact, just staring down at the floor. “Fuck,” he blurts, reaching up to rub furiously at his forehead. “I – shit. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I could tell you were at least a little drunk, but – fuck. I didn’t mean to. Take advantage.”

“What? No,” Lance sits bolt upright, waving his hands as if he can clear the air physically, reeling a little as the sudden movement makes his vision spin. “No man, that’s not how it was. I mean…quiznack, this is messed up.” He flails his hands around again, patting clumsily at Keith’s arm when the other man flinches. “Not you, just this entire thing. Ugh, this is so awkward.”

That gets a barking laugh from Keith, who leans forward to snag the alien booze off the console again. This time he doesn’t bother with the cap, flipping it onto the dashboard and drinking straight from the bottle. He coughs into his elbow a little, thrusting the drink in Lance’s direction blindly. Lance gladly takes it and follows his example. It still tastes awful, but he welcomes the burn.

“Amazing, something we agree on,” Keith mumbles.

He accepts the bottle again when Lance hands it back but doesn’t close it, tipping it back and forth on his knee and watching the reddish liquid swirl inside. It sparkles in Red’s console lights, and Lance focuses dizzily on that instead of letting himself think too hard about the fact that he’s going to show a shred of honest vulnerability to Keith Kogane. “It’s not like you forced me or whatever. Honestly, not how I was hoping my first time would go?” He aims for light and falls miles short, voice cracking. “I always imagined it would be more, um, mutual, for one, and with someone who actually wanted _me_, you know, like that.” Keith opens his mouth. “No, shush. But it wasn’t bad. I was having a kind of shitty day, and I felt shitty about it later – “

“Lance,” Keith interrupts wretchedly, and Lance just bats at his shoulder until he shuts up, barreling forward.

“But it was shitty for, for non-you-related reasons? Sorry, this really isn’t coming out very well, ugh.” Lances slaps at his own cheek briskly, trying to clear his head a little. It’s much warmer in Red than usual, and the swinging red lights of the controls and Keith’s gaze aren’t helping. He’s not sure where he’s going with this so he just lets the words spill in hopes that it detangles on the way out. “Quiznack. Like, it sucks because I didn’t have anything else going for me, so I just went for it, and then later I was like ok well that’s going to be my first time forever now, so I really screwed that one up, and I still have no one like that, and I didn’t even do anything? Just threw it away with a stranger who doesn’t give a crap and didn’t do anything for them? Except it wasn’t a stranger, it was _you_, and that’s a whole, a whole _thing_, and now you and me are in _space and saving the universe in a magic cat robot, _and what are the odds of that?! Oh my god. That’s crazy.”

“Fuckin’ crazy,” Keith agrees, shaking his head dazedly.

“Absolutely _quiznacking_ crazy. But like – you get me? It’s all kind of crappy but you were – ugh –“ Lance doesn’t want to give Keith a big head over this but he also can’t just let him think he _hurt _Lance, so he just rips it off like a bandaid. “You were kind of great? Like – _you _didn’t make me feel like crap. You know? It’s just the whole thing.”

Keith, not nearly as cheered as he should be by this brilliant gem of honesty, is still shaking his head at the floor almost mournfully. “I still feel bad, you should – your first time’s supposed to be nice.”

“Noooo, don’t feel bad, it wasn’t like –“ he smears a hand across his sweaty face, wishing they were in Blue for this conversation. Between the alcohol, the humiliating subject, and the red lights, he is way too warm in here. “Look, it was really hot.”

“Ugh. No, stoppit,” Keith groans, shoving at his shoulder. “Make fun of me and I’ll stab you. I can stab you, y’know. With a knife.”

“Oh my god, learn to take a compliment! I wasn’t picking on you, you’re just pissy.”

“Whatthefuckever.” The red paladin takes another swig from the bottle, then points at him unsteadily with the hand still holding it. “You pick on me all the time about everything, cuz you’re an asshole. You’re a whole lot fuckin’ nicer when your dick’s gettin’ sucked.”

Lance flares his hand on his chest with a totally normal and called-for level of drama, mouth dropping open in offense. “What! I’m nice! When am I not – I am a _cool and friendly dude_. You, bub, you’re the – jerk who goes around with a stick up his butt!”

“Always gotta pick a fight with me –“

“You’ve never met a fight you couldn’t start—"

“Bitchin’ and complaining about everything I do –“

“You do the same thing to me –“

“Makin’ fun of my damn haircut –“

“You started it by having a mullet! It’s a stupid haircut!”

“It ain’t stupid, this is just how my dad always cut it!” And he scowls, hunching his shoulders and touching the back of it as though he can hide it from Lance. “Always going on about what a – what a _loner_ I am like I don’t want to hang out with you guys, makin’ it all weird –“

“You – “ Lance stumbles over where he’s going next with that. “You, uh. _Do_ you like hanging out with us?”

“When you ain’t makin’ it weird!” Keith glares at him. “But I can barely even talk to Hunk or Pidge without you chasin’ me off like some kinda yappy guard dog.”

“…Oh. Well, ok. I guess…maybe I’ve been a bit of an asshole. But you always!” Lance tries to come up with some offense. “You’re always showing off, trying to make a big deal of how you’re better than me—"

“It ain’t showin’ off to do my _job, _McClain, and you do jus’ fine when you ain’t shooting yourself in the foot by turning everythin’ into a competition and just focus!”

“Well tell that to Iverson,” Lance snaps.

“Iverson,” Keith pronounces, as though he’s stating a well-worn proverb, “is a _dick_.”

“He IS a dick!”

“I punched him once,” Keith says almost contemplatively. “It was great.”

“Is that why you got expelled?”

“Yeah.” Keith shrugs one shoulder, glaring out the viewport. “Worth it though.”

“…I guess it’s not your fault what he said,” Lance says grudgingly.

“Wooooow,” says Keith, packing in at least ten syllables’ worth of sarcasm. “_Thanks_.”

“Ugh, shut up. It just sucked, ok? He was always comparing me to you. Constantly talking you up, after you left. What a great plot - _pilot_ you were, what a _natural._ Everything came so easy to you and you didn’t even care.”

“Hah!” Keith clangs the bottle down on the dash so hard that Lance jumps and nearly falls out of his seat, which seems to be much more…movey and rocky than he would think for something bolted to the floor. “Seriously? That is _rich, _comin’ from Iver- fuck. He never got off my ass when I was there, always on about my diss – dissplan. My record. Sayin’ the only reason I even got in and then weren’t booted out and shipped back t’ the home the first week was cuz Shiro stuck up for me. Fucker!”

“Wow,” Lance says, after a heavy pause. “He was _such _a dick.”

Keith snorts. “Yeah.”

“…Do you regret it?”

“Punchin’ Iverson? Nah, it was the best fuckin’ thing I ever did at the Garrison.”

“Not that. The other – you know. The – sex thing.”

Sighing explosively, Keith rakes a hand through his hair. His face is red, but it’s hard to tell tell if it’s a blush of embarrassment, the flush of alcohol, or just the lighting in Red’s cockpit. “Fuck, Lance. I don’ know. Not – it’s, it’s like you said. It’s weird. I weren’t in the best place when all that was goin’ on, y’know? Everythin’ was shitty. I’m not like, proud of a lot of the shit that I did to deal with it. But I don’ like, hold it against _you_. It ain’t yer fault. And you had a real nice dick,” he adds as an afterthought.

“Oh my god, Keith,” Lance groans, covering his face. Or maybe holding it on, he’s not sure. His throat and cheeks are buzzing uncomfortably with tingly heat, and his hands are just enough cooler against his skin that he feels like they might keep his face from peeling right off.

“What?” Keith throws one arm out in an exaggerated shrug. “Don’ get all shy on me now, McClain. I know what I’m talkin’ bout, ok –”

“Can we not talk about my _stuff_ while we’re wash- wase. Wasted,” Lance whines through his fingers.

“Well I ain’t gonna do it sober, thass for fuckin’ sure.”

“Point.” He does have a point. Drinking for this was maybe a good idea, even if he’s a little worried his eyeballs might start fizzling. Keith is kind of smart sometimes.

“Thanks.”

“I said that off – out loud,” Lance observes. His eyes feel kind of heavy, but he’s not sure what he can do about it other than close them and rub his eyelids with the palms of his hands. Oh man, Red’s dashboard feels SO cold and smooth against his forehead, wow. “Red, you’re the best.”

“She _is_,” Keith agrees, sounding a little choked up. “She’s so great. I’m glad we found ‘em. Or they found us.” A tap of Keith’s foot against his knee sends him rocking. “Hey. Lance. It’s cool. The lions are so big, right. This – space is big. This war an’ everything. An’ Voltron. We’re _paladins_ with these lions. It’s not that big a deal, really. Space is _huge _and ok. It’s weird but, s’not that big. Not with everything else. Y’know?”

That’s the deepest thing Lance can remember ever hearing. “Yeah,” he says, dizzy with the revelation. “Oh my god. Earth is so far away.” The thought sinks down through him, but he’s so small and light himself that it floats like a thin slick of oil on the vastness of the universe and their place in it. The enormity of the intergalactic war they’ve sunk into like tiny sparks into an ocean threatens to bowl him over. “And it’s not like- you know. It’s not like it’s gonna happen again. Uh. It’s not gonna happen again, right?”

“Nope, no. Fuck no, I don’ do that shit no more,” Keith cuts his arms in a negative so sharply that he nearly drops the bottle, then fumbles with it for a full ten seconds before managing to get it right-side-up on the floor beside his seat. “I got Shiro, and Voltron – an’ – fuck, I was so fuckin’ stupid. I mean no off – offs – fuck. You got a pretty dick but? Are we even friends? And I just want it to mean somethin’, if I get innit with someone. Like you said. Maybe wanna mean somethin’ to someone? You don’ even _wanna_, do you?”

Lance only really followed about half of that word by word, but he thinks he and Keith are on the same alcohol-tinged wavelength. “Yeah, man. Me too, I wanna – mean something to someone. Yeah. But hey, we’re friends now, we gotta be. We bonded in…gross bar weirdness.”

“You better remember this time,” Keith grumbles, giving him a loose shove to the shoulder that gives up halfway through, his arm heavy through Lance’s own pauldron where it ends up parking itself. “’k, we talked about it. Let’s never talk about it again.”

“You got it, buddy,” Lance slurs, unfolding one arm from under his head to hold out a pinky at his fellow paladin. “Pinky promise.”

“What. Thass sooooo stupid,” Keith mutters under his breath, but he links his pinky with Lance’s (though it takes a few tries, and he nearly jabs Lance’s eye out, making them both giggle helplessly).

They end up finishing the bottle – might as well finish a job mostly done, right? Things get fuzzy for Lance, after that. He vaguely recalls them both lying on the floor after a while, because the chairs were moving around too much, and arguing about where to get the best tacos in the desert towns around the Garrison, and laughing so hard he almost threw up when Keith admitted that in his efforts to obtain the bottle of horrible red liquor and get it into Red without Shiro noticing, he had at one point thrown it down the laundry chute in a panic.

Luckily Red doesn’t need any help docking, because by the time they get back to the Castleship there’s only a couple fingers’ worth of liquor sloshing around in the bottom of the bottle, and gravity has become pretty unfriendly.

“Mission accomplished!” Lance crows to Shiro as the two of them stumble down the ramp, leaning heavily on each other, and then shrieks as one of them trips and they both pitch over the side to crash sloppily to the hangar floor in a tangle. Keith howls with laughter.

Shiro just sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and not nearly as impressed as he should be.

-

They don’t bring it up again, but it’s like a door has been opened.

In a bizarre way it’s freeing, acknowledging his most embarrassing secret to someone, knowing theirs in turn, and still being able to look them in the eye afterward. It doesn’t really get more mortifying than the shared humiliation of an anonymous gloryhole virgin blowjob in a trashy dive bar. They still argue sometimes, sure, but knowing someone’s already seen you at your lowest somehow just makes it a lot easier to be open.

“Lance!” his comm crackles in a space mall during a supply stop. “I need your help.”

He’s on the alert immediately, dropping the capsule of soap he was looking at back into the bin with a clatter. The shopkeep gives him a sour look. “Keith? Where are you? Are you under attack?”

“No, I- “ There’s a clunk, and a splashing sound. “Fuck! I’m – ugh. I’m stuck.”

“Stuck? Where are you?”

“In the bathroom,” says Keith, aggrieved. There’s more clunking and a yelp. “Shit! I’m in the – uh, the one with the purple triangle thing on the door? I can’t figure out how the hell these toilets work – if they even are toilets – and now it won’t let go of my boot – “

And after a trip to a muggy jungle planet –

“Ooof,” Keith says, and hisses between his teeth. “Yeah, it definitely got you, man. There’s at least three bites, shit.”

Groaning, Lance pulls his pants back up over his alien bug-bitten butt. “Great. Guess I’m sleeping on my front for a couple days. How can our armor be spaceproof and not bugproof??”

“Tell me about it. You might want the pod for those. Or at least get some of that cream from Coran, it helps with the burning and flaking – I might still have some left –"

So yeah. Things are…shockingly good. It turns out Keith isn’t such a bad guy once you’ve had a drunken heart to heart with him. A little weird, and a little rude, but not a bad guy.

And then they…they lose Shiro.

They all struggle – with grief, with their new roles. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that Keith is struggling the most. Despite initial bitterness, Lance takes his new place as the Right Hand of Voltron seriously. And from that place, he can easily see that the black paladin is being stretched to his snapping point.

They're doing the usual diplomatic dance on a planet inhabited by aliens who could almost be mistaken for humans except for the complete lack of hair and extra nostrils in unnerving places, when Lance notices Keith heading off alone between meetings. He’s acting shady, having traded his Voltron armor for clothes that are nondescript for the planet with his hood up, and as Lance follows him – just checking in, not being weird! – it doesn’t take long to figure out the reluctant leader of Voltron is heading for what their hosts have warned them is the sketchy side of town.

His stomach sinks, and he lengthens his stride to catch up.

Hands laced casually behind his head, Lance falls into step beside him. “Yooo, Keitharino! Where you headed? Can I come?”

Keith’s hand automatically goes for his knife until he sees who it is. “The market. And no.”

“Great, I love shopping!”

“You’re not invited. I just need to pick something up. I don’t want to get stuck looking at – what the fuck, Lance!”

It’s probably only because Keith is caught off guard at being seized by the arm and yanked off balance that Lance is able to manhandle the usually-poised paladin into a little alcove off the street.

“Ooookaaay, yeah, no. Why don’t we just take this back to the Castle. We both know you’re not going off to buy knife polish or whatever.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Um, I _do_, actually,” Lance says, wagging a finger at him. “Or were you _not _sneaking off to find an alien Double Down’s?”

Keith jerks as if he’s been punched, and shoves at Lance like he’s ready to return a blow. “You swore you wouldn’t bring that up again,” he hisses. “It’s none of your damn business where I’m going.”

Instead of letting go as Keith tries to push him off, Lance latches on, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him a little like he can knock the sense into him. “When you're putting Voltron at risk, I’m _making_ it my business!”

The other paladin goes still, livid and pale. “I wouldn’t do anything to put Voltron at risk. I would _never._”

“_You_ are a part of Voltron, Keith! You're putting _yourself_ at risk!”

“That’s rich, coming from _you_,” Keith snaps, cocking his head and stepping in so close their chests are almost brushing. “So it's ok if you want to go flirt and joyride with random aliens, but it's different when I do it?”

Lance ignores the barb of hurt at that. “Thanks for the perfect example of why this is a bad idea – remember the part where I ended up tied to a tree and my Lion hijacked? I know better than anyone.”

It seems like Keith wasn’t expecting him to own up to that instead of getting mad. He crosses his arms, curling in and harder and glaring laser-hot. Attacking to defend. He bites out, “So, what. You’re not trying to cockblock me, but I also shouldn't fuck strangers. You trying to get your dick wet again?”

“Keith.” Loosening his grip, Lance lets his hands slide down from Keith’s shoulder, and hugs him.

It’s like hugging a cactus with a lot of elbows and anger issues. The other paladin stands stiff and prickly against him, jaw clenched and arms like a shield between their chests. Lance hugs him closer, keeping his embrace high around his back and unmistakably platonic.

“I’m your teammate and your friend,” Lance says to the wall behind him. “Sorry, I know we said we wouldn’t talk about it, but I’m not going to let you hurt yourself. You said that you weren't proud of…doing that stuff. That you did it because you were trying to deal with shit. I want you to be ok without having to resort to that. That’s all.”

All at once Keith goes loose and heavy against him like his strings have been cut, all the fire going out of him. He pulls in a long, shuddering breath.

“Have you been sleeping?” Lance asks, rocking him a little.

“Some,” Keith mumbles into his shoulder.

“Look. Why don’t we just turn this around, head back to the Castle, take a niiiiice refreshing nap, and then we can talk this out. Or not!” he backtracks when Keith bristles. “A nice refreshing nap – that one’s non-negotiable – and then we can go spar or something. Come on, Kogane. Let’s go practice some healthy coping skills, mmmk?”

“Fine.” His grunt is unenthused, but he goes without resistance when Lance throws an arm around his shoulders and steers him back out into the street.

Instead of inviting himself over or entertaining a debate about it, Lance just leads Keith to his own room. Keith doesn’t say anything about the choice of venue, just looks around at all the souvenirs he’s collected, bemused. “Take your shoes off,” Lance says, gesturing at his bunk, and starts taking his own boots off when Keith sits stiffly at the edge.

“Just half an hour.”

“Ok, sounds good,” Lance agrees easily. He slings off his jacket and tosses it over the desk before shooing Keith over to make room. When the other paladin finally lies down, a rigid parenthesis with his back to the wall, Lance clambers in to sit against the headboard next to him and pulls the blanket over both Keith and his own legs.

“Are you napping too?”

“Don’t make it sound weird, we got smashed and bonded.”

“At least you remember it this time,” Keith grumbles.

“I’m going to stay and make sure you actually sleep, dude –“ Keith’s mouth drags stubbornly – “_And _that you don’t oversleep.”

Keith eyes him strangely from under furrowed brows, then seems to come kind of conclusion. “Fine. Don’t let me nap longer than half an hour,” he says, tucking a hand under his cheek and curling up tighter, like a quick afternoon nap is something he has to brace himself for.

“Yeah man, I promise. Look, I’m even setting a timer,” Lance assures him, tapping at his tablet.

Keith’s breath evens out as Lance loads up an Altean puzzle game. Even resting he looks exhausted, brow slightly furrowed and the rings under his eyes like bruises, body scrunched defensively. As Lance watches he winds even tighter, burrowing into the covers up to his eyebrows.

“You cold, man? I can turn up the stat,” Lance says, but Keith doesn’t react. Huh. Must be nice to be able to fall asleep instantly like that, he thinks dryly.

But that’s not really fair, he chides himself. The whole point is that the guy hasn’t been getting enough sleep. If anything it’s kind of flattering that Keith feels comfortable enough with him that he can just pass out like that. And apparently he’s _really _comfy, because even as he’s watching Keith burrows closer, knees tucked up and arms curled against his chest, forehead pressing to Lance's hip. It’s like when the cat who hates everyone decides it doesn’t mind you. Lance's heart kind of melts a little. 

And then he starts _buzzing? _It’s a just-audible low rumble, going louder and softer as he breathes, but Lance can clearly feel the thrumming against his hip. Oh god, he’s _purring. _That’s just not fair. Lance stares fixedly at the tablet. The colorful blocks of the puzzle zip right through his head without leaving any information behind. That, uh. Sure explains the vibe action during that blowjob.

Nope, he tells himself sternly, not going down that road. Just cuddling his friend who needs better coping mechanisms.

He wonders if all Galra purr. Heck. It’s adorable.

Slowly, so as not to wake him, Lance strokes his hand up and down between Keith’s shoulder blades, and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when the other man actually starts to loosen. He’s never thought of Keith has a cuddly person – he doesn’t exactly initiate hugs or snuggle up on the couch with the rest of them when they watch bizarre alien TV. But then...Shiro was really the only one who would go out of his way to clap Keith on the back, hug him around the shoulders, high five him after a particularly tricky training maneuver. Maybe he should talk to the others about reaching out to him more. Pidge isn’t very touchy-feely themselves but Hunk would be sure to deliver.

It feels like hardly any time at all before the alarm on his tablet is going off, beeping quietly. True to his word he wakes Keith, patting his cheek to wake him up. He maybe also has a little private chuckle at how the little bit of puppy fat still there jiggles.

The purring sputters out like a motor running out of gas, his eyes slitting open. “Hnn?”

“That’s thirty minutes,” Lance says, muted. “You wanna go do something or just chill?”

Keith _hnnnnn_s again, blinking groggily. “Should get up.”

“But do you wanna? We dont actually _have_ to be anywhere. The next thing on the schedule is the gala and that’s not for hours.” Lance kind of doesn't want to get up either. He’s warm and comfy and it's been too long since he’s been able to just cuddle someone. Even if he never really expected that someone to be Keith. So he’s a little touch-starved out here in space lightyears from his family. Sue him.

Keith just sighs. Even fresh off a nap he looks exhausted.

Lance sets the tablet aside and wriggles down into the blankets, twisting to lie down and mirror Keith’s position. “You wanna talk about it?”

Keith opens his mouth, struggling for a moment, then deflates. “What is there to say,” he says finally. “What else is there…we’ve tried everything, looked everywhere. Until we have a new lead, a new idea – what is there to talk about?“ he shrugs again miserably. “Can we talk about literally anything else if we have to talk.”

“Ok then, how about this: what the fuck was that on the planet just now.” Lance keeps his tone light, but even so the other paladin flinches. “I know you know you can't just run off and do that kind of shit.”

Keith scrunches defensively, curling his hands tighter into his own chest. “Nothing even happened, Jesus.”

“So you're saying it wouldn't have if I hadn't dragged you back by the mullet?”

Keith’s silence would be telling even if the situation hadn’t been obvious all on its own.

“Look. I’m not trying to cockblock you to be an asshole, I just want you to be safe. And… you said you weren't proud of all that. I don’t want you to do something you’d regret because you’re feeling crappy.” He hesitantly puts a hand on Keith’s arm. Instead of bristling this time, Keith actually tips his head into Lance’s sternum, sighing like he hasn’t slept in a year.

“Why are you being nice to me,” he asks, plucks a little at the sheet between them with one hand.

Lance scoffs a little, heart panging when he realizes Keith is serious. “We’re friends, Keith. Friends do this kind of stuff for each other.”

“Even back then,” Keith insists, meeting his eyes. He seems almost annoyed about it. “You can be an asshole a lot of the time but, ugh. Back when, you know. You were nice.” He huffs a laugh. “Asking if I was sick, offering me a drink. It was a little weird, but - ”

“Ugh, don’t remind me! I was pathetic,” Lance whines.

“It was the most anyone talked to me in months.”

Lance…doesn’t have anything to say to that. He opens his mouth, and then closes it again like a fish. In the end he winds up awkwardly patting Keith’s bicep. “Oh, um. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. So. Thanks. It helped, some, then. And thanks for today.” Keith is still watching him from the corner of his eyes, as he twists and untwists a bit of the sheet in his fingers.

“Hey, any time,” Lance says. “I’m always good to hang, and I have it on good authority that I have a sunny personality that can cheer up the gloomiest glum.”

He scoffs, but it seems half-hearted. “Oh yeah? What authority is that?”

“Hunk, obviously.”

“Well I can’t argue with Hunk,” Keith says dryly. “And, um. You too, you know? If you need to. Talk, or whatever.”

“Aw, thanks buddy. Bring it in!” He opens the arm he’s not propped on, half expecting Keith to scowl or laugh him off, but after a deer-in-headlights moment of hesitation, he carefully wraps an arm around Lance’s back.

This hug is much better than the one in the alley. Keith’s long hair is tickling his face and he seems unsure of how tight to hold on, but he relaxes when Lance gives him a squeeze before letting go.

“You wanna go train?”

“No,” Keith admits.

“Wanna go back to sleep?

“_No_.”

Lance hesitates, but before he figures out what to say next, Keith says, “Can we just...be. For a bit.”

“Sure, man. Of course.”

He flops on his back, wriggling in a bit to get comfy. Keith’s knees are still pressed warm against his leg, but the other man doesn’t shift away, so neither does he. Picking up his tablet, he opens the puzzle game back up and starts telling Keith about it, his rambling punctuated by occasional hums or snorts from Keith. He grins when the purring starts up again, but doesn’t mention it.


End file.
